Disability Without Borders: Blind Activism and the Limits of Technology as Neutral Ground in Cold War Europe

During the Cold War, the European Regional Committee (ERC) of the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind sought to use assistive technologies as neutral tools for fostering depoliticized cooperation across the East-West ideological divide. This article examines the ERC's collaborative projects during the 1970s, arguing that although they facilitated connections between research centers and manufacturers across geopolitical borders, they were ultimately constrained by both activists' conflicting approaches to disability and Cold War political realities. By analyzing the intersections of disability, technology, and geopolitics, the article contributes to our understanding of how global technological collaboration was both enabled and restricted by broader political and cultural forces.